“UFOs are real.”
I’ll never forget the day my dad said that.
Jaw dropped open.
Eyes wide.
“They are?” I asked.
My dad taught science at the high school.
He always shot straight with my brother and me.
When we asked about Santa Claus, he asked:
“What do you think?”
When we asked about the Tooth Fairy, he asked:
“What do you think?”
But when we asked about UFOs, he said:
…amazingly…
“UFOs are real.”
My brother and I started chattering.
“Flying saucers are real!”
“Dad says spacemen are visiting the Earth!”
“I hope they land in our neighborhood!”
Dad held up his hand.
“Do you guys know what a UFO is?”
Of course, we did!
Everybody knows a UFO is a spaceship carrying time travelers from a distant galaxy.
“U.F.O. stands for Unidentified Flying Object”
He explained that there are planes, birds, balloons, and clouds in the sky.
And sometimes these common objects are ‘unidentified’.
…or ‘misidentified’.
“A UFO is just something in the sky that you can’t identify.”
Well…
…that made UFOs much less exciting…
…but it taught me an important lesson in critical thinking.
I apply the lesson often.
Like when somebody says:
“God is real.”
I don’t start chattering right away.
“You think there’s an old guy with a beard floating in the clouds?”
“You think there’s an invisible friend listening to your prayers?”
“You deny science?”
…UFOs taught me to let people explain themselves.
…UFOs taught me to avoid hasty assumptions.
“God” is a tiny word that holds space for an infinite concept.
Why do humans wonder about what else is ‘out there’?
What’s the evolutionary explanation for saying, “God is real”?
Before you answer…
…make sure you understand what “God” means.
7 Responses
Good point John!
What’s the evolutionary explanation for saying, “God is real”?
See Terror Management Theory.
Brilliant!
You want to tell us what you mean by that or do we get to put words in your mouth?
To repeat: “See (as in look up and read for yourself) Terror Management Theory”
Oh.
Please see Ignorance Aversion Theory.
You know “Terror Management Theory,” JB. It’s what Atheists do as a defense mechanism, when they don’t want to believe in God.
“I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the Scientism and Reductionism of our time.” -Thomas Nagel, Atheist.
So, while religious people try to manage their own terror, the Atheists are battling a Cosmic Authority problem. Isn’t it nice that we can put everybody’s beliefs in a pretty box like that?
AND PLEASE DON’T JUST PASTE A LINK!
Tell me how Terror Management Theory plays out in your mind.